Army Bob: The left helping modern day robber barons

by Robert M. Traxler

Jeff Bezos, the new champion of the American Left, is worth in excess of $194,900,000,000, an amount greater than gross national product of more than 100 nations, it is greater than the combined annual income of 2,835,734 American families.

Good for him. As a capitalist, I cheer his success; however, where are the liberals of old who condemned capitalism? Mr. Bezos is making his billions by buying low and selling high, an age-old concept in a capitalist nation. So how does he do it? Simple, he buys products made in China at vastly reduced labor costs, and sells them in the United States marked up, in some cases by as much as 500%.

Mr. Bezos took a hit to his bottom line when President Trump placed controls, tariffs, and duties on imports from China. At the time it was done, I wrote in this column that it was not a conservative thing to do; free trade is a mantra of the right and normally the bane of the liberals.

So how does the world’s richest man change government policy back? He buys and pays for a new government. Now that is tricky; just how do you pull that off?  Mr. Bezos owns the Washington Post, arguably the most influential media source in the world, a great investment at a mere $250 million, and he gets to control the news.

The billionaires who own the social media giant corporations are also bowing down and kissing the ring of the Peoples Republic of China, not in the name of free speech, in the name of profit. China is potentially the largest market in the world, with the economy growing rapidly after the one-government two-system policy was established.

China is a socialist/communist government and semi-capitalist economy — yes, they abandoned their socialist economic system. The social media giants were in the same boat as Amazon and Mr. Bezos; President Trump was not good for the bottom line and had to go, and they controlled the narrative to ensure the outcome of the election and the lifting of the fair-trade restrictions on China.

Americans suffer, especially the blue collar, union, working folks, but the new left couldn’t care less. Their constituents are now the college educated elite in the “advanced service professions.” Do you think the left wants to pay for college tuition out of love for the people? “Come on man,” the more people who go to college the more leftists/socialists are created.

China is growing by leaps and bounds with huge coal fired power plants, with limited pollution controls, burning dirty North Korean coal, coming online at a rate of nearly one per month and have been for years. China, according to Wikipedia, has more vehicles than the United States without the environmental controls so important to Americans.

American liberals, where are you? American environmentalists, where are you? You have been played like a flute by the 21st century robber barons: Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and others. You are a bullet in the 30-round magazine of their fully automatic economic assault weapons. A strong China, militarily and economically, is good for the bottom line of the new robber barons and that is simply fine with liberals?

Folks, you cannot make this stuff up. If global climate change is real and the world will end in 10 years (according to AOC, the Oracle of the House of Representatives) unless the world cuts carbon emissions by 45%, then it is time for the fat lady to sing.

Talk to leftists/socialists and they will tell you that China and India are cutting carbon emissions. Well… they are cutting the rate of growth of carbon emissions, not total carbon emissions, which have grown at some 0.9% last year, which will result in an overall growth in the next 10 years, not a reduction of 45%, so the world, per AOC and the United Nations, will end in 10 years, and we must believe the science or be called a denier.

Average American Democrats, the good solid working folks, are being replaced with limousine liberals, upper middle-class folks who care more about social justice than real justice, who want hard work and honesty to be replaced with equal outcomes, not equal opportunity, and the robber barons of the 21st century are getting even richer helping them.

My opinion.